The Dubois Charitable Foundation is announcing a new imitative to directly help families in Cuba recover from the effects of this summer‚Äôs hurricanes

This would involve the collection and assembly of Family Relief Kits.

These kits will be distributed to families in a hurricane ravaged area of Cuba, and will be given to those who have lost their home or substantial part of it, and are experiencing the greatest need. IE: families where a woman is pregnant, where a member(s) is physically or mentally impaired, old people in poor health, families with young children.

A number of posters to Cuba related web sites have recently made derogatory comments about some of the Foundation's volunteers and the work that we do in Cuba. Specifically, they state categorically, that the materials that we send to alleviate the lack of supplies and equipment in hospitals, clinics, other medical facilities, orphanages, educational institutions, and hurricane victims, are not distributed to where they were addressed, but rather to military , turistic locations, or sold in stores. This is patently false, as i have followed, photographed, and audited the items sent by our Foundation over a period of 6 years, in over 60 medical facilities throughout the island , and have found that the great majority of our donations had arrived where we had sent them. We also have checked on the arrival of materials in every orphanage, special schools for children with learning disabilities, and homes for the mentally and/or physically disabled persons, to which we had sent donations, and in every instance found pretty much all the materials sent; and in the case of consumable materials the documented evidence of deliveries to the intended locations. We also sent equipment, and building materials to victims of hurricane , and ascertained that all of it was received where intended; and 2 teams of Canadians went to see the houses that had been restored with our materials, i personnaly went as well. We also reviewed the lists of those persons that had received clothing, footwear etc sent by us, and their signature next to the items received. On a number of ocasions, we have been asked to divert some materials to other locations in Cuba because of some critical needs, or emergencies. We generally have agreed to it, upon being provided with satisfactory information. In every such instance , we were consulted, and made the changes in cooperation with government officials at the national, provincial and municipal levels. To ensure the integrity and transparency of our help to the Cuban people, every box, bag or package sent in a container has 2 labels, identifying the sender, the container number, the package number, and the beneficiary's name and address; and we enlist the assistance and support of the Canadian embassy , and a European NGO that has a permanent establishment and personnel in Cuba. The latter are present at the opening of our containers, organize much of the trucking of materials to locations far from Havana , and deliver most of the donations to Havana, Havana province and Pinar del Rio for us.( i have participated in many of these deliveries) Additionally they maintain all records of deliveries, duly signed; discrepancies, and help with following up on missing or misplaced items.We have excellent relations (most of the time) with MINVEC personnel from the minister to the staff in all the provinces.In my opinion, we lose much less of the donations that we send to cuba , than any other charitable organization that i know of, that sends assistance to other parts of the world. That does not mean that we should be satisfied and complacent, however.We continually strive to achieve maximum delivery accuracy, but we, and the people at the other end are not perfect; we make mistakes and so do they. I find it particularly offensive to everyone of our volunteers who give so much of their time, money and materials to help those in need, when some malicious people try to unjustly discredit the work that we do